Can't Possibly Be True! | 'Retiring' the Herd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published May 15, 2017

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Reporting from Mbyo, Rwanda, in January on the success of a "reconciliation" program following the country's bloody genocidal wars, London's The Guardian found, for example, Laurencia Niyogira living peacefully and forgivingly alongside neighbor Tasian Nkundiye -- even though, 22 years ago, Nkundiye murdered Niyogira's entire family (except for her and her siblings, left barely alive). (Over a 100-day span in 1994, 800,000 ethnic Tutsis were systematically slaughtered by Hutus.) A survey by the country's national unity commission showed that 92 percent of Rwandans have come to accept reconciliation. [The Guardian, 1-12-2017]

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Settlement of a class-action lawsuit against a group of dairy co-ops was announced in January with milk producers agreeing to pay $52 million on charges they had conspired to fix the dairy supply for years to get top-dollar prices. Among the producers' primary tactics, allegedly, was using what the industry calls "herd retirement," which is "retirement" only in the sense that 500,000 healthy young cows were slaughtered -- just to drive up prices by eliminating otherwise-available milk. The $52 million will be for consumers in 15 states and Washington, D.C. [Washington Post, 1-19-2017]